No - they fit a 100A cable (or less) up everyone's driveway. That is jointed in a resin (or older "compound") filled joint box to the cable, which may be larger that 500A (remember, this is a network cabling system and may (usually is) fed from at least both ends of the road).
And trousers....
With BC lamp fittings its pretty much a non issue, since you won't be able to make contact to the pins for adequate duration to sustain a serious shock. With a ES fitting, then there is a slightly larger risk if it is wired incorrectly with the outer ring live.
The danger is not stopping it, but upsetting one of those signals enough to disrupt the normal synchronisation of muscle contractions that make an effective heartbeat. Electric shocks have a tendency to leave it contracting out of sequence - the result is that it basically jiggles about but does not pump effectively. This situation is as life threatening as a stopped heart, but can be fixed (ironically) with an electric shock of significant magnitude to effect resynch all the nerve pulses simultaneously.
Rewireables are more of a concern on power circuits than lighting. They can still cause problems with circuit design even then though if there are other de-rating factors that need to be considered. The main danger is abuse - i.e. a halogen goes pop and takes out the fuse, and it then gets rewired with the wrong wire - or a paper clip - because that is all that is to hand. You then have a fire risk since the cable no longer has adequate fault protection.
Mains halogens have a habit of doing that even when the fuse goes.
Indeed. The stats had been falling year on year as older places were updated. Part P has put a slight damper on people doing rectification work, and hence they living with substandard installation rather than fixing them. So the injuries actually rise.
Depends on which ones. If you mean those in government adding complexity and red tape to people carrying out remedial electrical work, then yes I agree. However if you mean the proper engineers who design and specify our electrical standards, then I disagree. Due to our standards we have one of the safest electrical systems in the world, and a vastly smaller injury rate than most countries.
Would you like me to pass that message on to my former next door neighbour? Her son (in his 20s) was electrocuted on a building site a few years ago. Oddly her response was not "big deal".
Because in spite of what you believe to be the case, you have never had a serious shock.
Yup, like this chap:
Alas not necessarily. Earthing as required to pass adequate current to trip a circuit protective device does not have conductor sizes adequate to ensure limitation of touch voltages. Also note that earthing can be fully functional in some cases with a loop impedance of 100 ohms or more. That will have little or no effect reducing touch voltages but would still pass adequate current to trip a RCD.
They will probably use the 100A cable and the 500A fuse. The fuse would not be intended to protect the cable from overload anyway, only faults.
As a minimum ;-)
Quite possibly a "ring main" in the proper use of the phrase... ;-)
was an old house. The hot wire ignited the rafters.
very loudly and thrown sparks for a full 10 minutes. Also the electric board guy confirmed it when I asked him. He said it was "too expensive to fit them".
I saw the fire brigade report. I saw where the fire started. I saw the loose wire before the event.
Maybe so, but that's not what the Hydro Electric guy told me. Shortly afterwards I saw a bank of fuses on the pole-mounted substation that were not there before.
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